My wife had one of these cars and no, this is baloney. The tires VW supplied were really cheap and wore out quickly. Most people bought the cheapest narrow replacement tires they could find, we are talking the $11.95 come-in and loss-leaders here, and those wore out quickly too.
If when the factory tires wore out you went out and bought some expensive high mileage tires then yes you could get a long life. We are talking a pretty lightweight car, that is why they lasted long. But a lightweight car in combination with high mileage tires which have very hard rubber and little grip, with narrow tires, well that car was all over the road if it was windy. And the handling was not that hot, but they didn't go all that fast either. The VW Rabbits were like the Nissan/Datsun 210s, they were products of an end of an era of very simply built and simply designed cars, using very old engine and fuel designs that were very basic. Because they were cheap, they were very popular and lots of young pups who couldn't afford to pay mechanics to work on their cars would buy them. But, damn they were cheesy! I remember replacing the water pump in my wife's car (then girlfriend) I had to do it 3 times because the first two water pumps I put in leaked right out of the box.
Not true. The only thing that is a problem with the wear patterns on wide tires is that they are more sensitive to under or over inflation. If inflated properly they wear the same as high profile tires of the same material on the same weight vehicle.
I think low profile tires are pretty stupid, for a lot of reasons not the least is that if you hit a chuckhole you bend a rim. But wear on a standard passenger car isn't one of those reasons.
Ted